Whale Cove (Dec 06/06) - Things really began to add up for students at Inuglak school in Whale Cove this past month.

The school hosted a number of fun-filled learning activities to celebrate Numeracy Month.

Grade 4-5 teacher Kristen Sawyers says the idea of having Numeracy Month in November originated with the Kivalliq Math Educators Panel.

She says the fun-while-you-learn approach to developing math skills can be highly effective.

"We have spirit teams at our school so we started with challenges such as the tallest team, during which each team member is measured and their combined heights added up," says Sawyers.

"Among our main events, each teacher ran a math game in the gym (math and munchies) for students and parents to get together and try to solve."

The school's Grade 5 and 6 students had a math camp, which included a sleepover at the school.

Among the featured activities were fraction pizzas, math challenges in the gym, the Rush Hour game on the computer and gummy bear graphing.

A geometric pancake breakfast was then held for the students the following morning.

Sawyers says a math fair was also held for students to solve a word problem and display their solution.

She says the event was similar to a science fair, but with less research involved.

"The entire staff pitched in to make Numeracy Month an event the kids absolutely loved.

"They realized it was a jazzed-up math class, but it sure beat the pencil-and-paper approach to learning math.

"The students were happy to be out of the classroom and taking part in all the activities, so I saw nothing but enthusiasm for the events from the students."

Sawyers says the students took a lot away from the different events, especially the ones held on a level playing field.

"Some events had kindergarten to Grade 12 participate and I'm not sure the senior students were having fun and interacting during those events.

"But it was a completely different story when the games were levelled by grades.

"You play the games over and over and you retain the facts as you're having fun.

"It's a good way to introduce topics because the students aren't afraid to learn math this way."